Haiti: Water for 10000 People
18/01/2010 11:38:10 AM
Credit: Paul Jeffrey/ACT
A water purification system, with pipes, filters and pumps that was brought from freezing cold Norway to burning hot Haiti, is providing 10,000 homeless Haitians with crystal clear drinking water. The ACT Alliance has brought in specialist water and sanitation facilities, desperately needed in earthquake-hit Haiti. The "water factory" is based in the Belair neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince. The water coming from these taps is the first clean water these people have had since the earthquake.
More equipment has been sent to homeless families in Jacmel, on Haiti's southern coast where the ACT Alliance is distributing tonnes of relief materials including four million water purification tablets, jerrycans, blankets and enough healthcare kits to last 10,000 people three months. The ACT Alliance is also involved in psycho-social treatment of the traumatized population.
Slowly food and water have started moving in Haiti. Aid workers have been struggling day and night to distribute goods and relief materials, as Haitians use their imagination and initiative to create new lives for themselves. Commercial activity is slowly recovering as an increasing number of vendors return to the streets of Haiti's earthquake-devastated capital, Port-au-Prince.
The streets are still full of rubble. Women try to clean up so, sometimes needing to hold cloths to their faces to mask the smell of decomposing bodies.
The ACT Alliance has set up tented camps in a soccer stadium in the Santa Teresa area of Petionville, offering shelter for the homeless population.
Water is a scarce commodity in Port-au-Prince. The ACt Alliance has delivered a 10,000 litre water bladder to a makeshift tent city at a partially-destroyed school in the Pean district of Port-au-Prince. A portable water system for the homeless families has also been set up and operates alongside an exisiting rainwater harvesting system. Although the school was partially destroyed, the system was able to be repaired by ACT personnel.
